


parts of me remind me of you

by jokeperalta



Category: Poldark (TV 2015)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, One Shot, Set after 2x04, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 10:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8529076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jokeperalta/pseuds/jokeperalta
Summary: A feeling as though she's somehow out of place here persists beyond all reason, even after she considers herself acclimated to London once more. The source of her changed feelings is hard to pinpoint.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 5 of Carolight Fic week on fuckyeahdwightcaroline 
> 
> I was inspired for this by George attempting to goad Dwight about Caroline in 2x05 and wondered if he might have (tried) to do the same to Caroline while they were both in London.

The familiar streets of London don't feel like the warm welcome home she was expecting. For the first time, the bustle and narrow walkways make her feel hemmed in, confined. She feels constantly restless, as though she might walk or ride for hours and still not tire herself. But between Uncle William's supervision and every street feeling much the same anyway, it has no outlet. She almost longs for the aching in her legs that came with negotiating the crags and hills of the countryside and its small towns--a sensation she never thought she'd miss.

A feeling as though she's somehow out of place here persists beyond all reason, even after she considers herself acclimated to London once more. The source of her changed feelings is hard to pinpoint.

Perhaps it's the company she's obliged to keep making her feel like a bird in a gilded cage.

Unwin is relentless in his insistence to call upon her almost every evening-- as ever, oblivious to her less-than-subtle hints that she tires of him as soon as she sets eyes on him. His presence irritates her now more than it ever has before, even though she's sure he was just as grating in London before and in Cornwall.

Having decided he's waited long enough but incapable of doing anything much about it without using the threat of jilting her (and thus, her twenty thousand) Unwin begins to press the subject of their engagement without grace or tact. He vacillates haplessly between talking of it as though it were established fact -as though she might be fooled and do the same with time- and trying to cajole into actually confirming the engagement. Caroline does neither.

It beggars belief really, but the prospect of the rest of her life spent with the oaf is even less appealing after just a week spent in London --it becomes a matter of desperately trying to entertain herself rather than him as she's supposed to, while he pontificates at her each evening. She envies Horace for being allowed to fall asleep in her lap whilst she is obliged to at least make the outward appearance of wakefulness while Unwin bores them both to death.

(She also now possess the blessing and curse of comparison as she never had before; placing Unwin next to someone else in her head and seeing clearly how woefully Unwin failed to match up.)

The whole business becomes so dire that Caroline eventually feels it necessary to feign illness when Unwin calls. But even this doesn't stop him irking her for long, as when she claims sickness one evening too many, Unwin sends his own physician to tend her. The physician, a man who is so old and unsteady on his feet he seems as though he himself will need the attention of a physician much sooner than she, is on orders to 'not take no for an answer'.

Perhaps if she had been allowed to remotely convince herself this gesture was an expression of genuine care on Unwin's part, she might feel at least a small amount of gratitude. But the doctor mentions that he's to report back to Mr Trevaunance for her suitability to be called upon in the coming evenings, any trace of that possibility disappears. Caroline wouldn't have been at all surprised if Unwin also wanted to a report as to whether she might be close to death in order that he might press for the engagement and marriage to be sooner.

But she dutifully allows Dr Thorne to attend her, carefully acting out some gentle sniffles and coughing. The doctor tuts and implies he'll put Unwin off for at least a few more days  which is quite honestly the best news she's had all week.

George Warlaggan calls soon after the doctor leaves and Caroline's good mood persists enough that she doesn't have him turned away, even if George may well report to Unwin she's well enough to receive visitors. George occasionally makes for diverting company, even if she finds him a little too reptilian and gauche to be taken in large measures.

"My, my-- I am quite the popular one today," Caroline says as he's shown in and bows to her.

"I was just passing and I thought I'd call in," George tells her. "I ran into the physician on my way here-- Are you quite well, Miss Penvenen?"

"I'm well, thank you." She gestures for him to be seated. "But Unwin need not know that - I fear my health may collapse altogether if I have to listen to him for another evening."

George makes an expression of mild surprise. "It was my understanding that one is not supposed to find one's betrothed's presence so distasteful until after the marriage."

"Yes, well, Unwin and I are not betrothed, so I suppose the rules don't apply."

George is silent and Caroline can almost hear the cogs ticking over in his head. "I tell you who that physician reminded me of," he says jovially, changing conversation topic completely. "That country doctor in Cornwall, do you recall?"

The words 'doctor in Cornwall' make her think of one man -the one never so far from her thoughts anyway- but to compare the doddering, tottering old fool who'd just attended her and couldn't tell even tell her feeble coughing was false to Dwight Enys was quite ridiculous.

"You mean Dr Choake?" Caroline prompts. She can see a resemblance there at least.

"No, no, the other one. Ross Poldark's ally." _Ally_ , she thinks. So militaristic a way to describe a friendship. Caroline wonders if he thinks of everything in terms of his personal war against Ross Poldark. "I'm unsurprised if you don't remember. Rather a forgettable chap I believe. What was his name? Enfield? Enford perhaps?"

Caroline narrows her eyes at the grain of the floorboards, rankled at the insult to Dwight but knowing better than to show it. She provoked enough people to recognise when someone was attempting to do so to her, especially when they attempt it in such a graceless way.

"Enys," Caroline corrects. It's unnecessary since George surely knew it but she feels she must humour George to get whatever purpose he's aiming at out of his system. Perhaps that way he'll leave sooner-- she's had quite enough of him today.

"Enys, of course." He cocks his head at her, giving some imitation of a smile. "Don't you think they share some common features, Miss Penvenen?"

"I have no opinion," Caroline intones. The extent to which she's ready for this conversation to end is almost unimaginable. She's close to longing for Unwin and his monologues at this point.

"No? He seemed to spend a lot of time around you. I got the impression he was rather taken with you." George scoffs out loud. "Poor fool."

Caroline carefully schools her expression into indifference, gazing out of the window. She does what she must to prevent giving George Warlaggan the satisfaction and confirmation of whatever he believed about herself and Dr Enys.

"My purpose in returning to London was to forget Dr Enys," she drones, as though bored. The words themselves are not a lie, even if her tone is. "And other such folk. Yet you seem insistent on talking about them, Mr Warlaggan. Perhaps you ought to return there yourself, if you consider them of your own ilk."

The reference to his background is predictably enough for his face to turn a blank kind of sour and to move the conversation to pastures new. George talks of London society thereafter, as though to convince her of the class to which he really felt he belonged.

Caroline rarely takes her eyes from the window, offering nothing in return. The grey skyline has little to capture her interest though, and makes her feel nothing at all. In fact, she feels as though she's felt nothing at all since she arrived back here.

All this time she's searched for a reason for it, some change in London or her circumstances or surroundings and found nothing to attribute it to. Perhaps she never found a reason because there is none to be found.

Perhaps it's her that's changed.


End file.
